Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Arthur Machen (1863-1947), an author who penned several influential works of supernatural horror and fantasy in his almost fifty-year writing career. While hardly a household name today, Machen can count among his past and present admirers H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, former British Poet Laureate John Betjeman, and popular movie director Guillermo del Toro. It is possible that his star may finally … [Read more...]

The nights are getting longer, darker, and colder these days, making it the perfect time to pull out your favorite horror novel or scary movie and get the heebie-jeebies before bedtime. Probably not, though, if you're a Christian. I would suspect that the "horror" genre is one of the most unpopular genres -- literary, cinematic, or otherwise -- for Christians, and understandably so. Many entries in the genre seem to do little else but revel in cruelty, sadism, and gore, e.g., the recent wave of … [Read more...]